Down on the Farm
by bridgetlynn
Summary: Cowgirl!Rachel & Cityboy!Puck. Drabble Meme Prompt. Puck has to spend a summer-work program at the Berry's family ranch. Neither teen is exactly what the other expected.


**Disclaimer:** Ryan Murphy & Co./Fox owns them. Believe me, if they belonged to me the plot lines the last season and a half would have been a hell of a lot less soap-opera-ish.

**Prompt:** Cowgirl!Rachel & Cityboy!Puck - PuckRachel Drabble Meme on LJ by: bewolke

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><p>There were precious few things that could cause Rachel Berry to lose her infinate amount of patience and Noah Puckerman was very quickly, without having even met her yet, proving to be one of them.<p>

She could concede, to be fair, that her annoyance this morning wasn't really directed at him; rather at the sudden change to her daily routine when she was informed a lunch that she needed to make the hour long drive south to Saratoga Springs to pick the teen up at the train station. She hadn't bothered arguing the case again; her father's weren't going to listen to her no matter what she said on the subject.

She had been fairly certain last summer's debacle of almost having one of their barn's burn down due to the 'troubled youth' that was supposed to spend the summer learning responsibility and had instead tried to grow and dry marijuana would have been the clincher they needed.

Instead, they decided to go with an apparently 'less troubled youth' for this summer.

All she knew about Noah Puckerman was that he was from a single parent household, had grown up in New York City and had a younger sister who was a straight A student and had earned a scholarship to a summer music camp. When she asked her father's why they were stuck with him for the summer all they had said was that he had gotten into some trouble during the school year and his case worker wanted him to do something productive during his summer months.

Rachel translated that into she was going to be stuck babysitting him on top of her other chores. She was only slightly reassured by the fact that last summer her father's had told her to both stay away from the kid they brought to the ranch and had made a work schedule that kept him far away from the tourists. The fact that they wanted Rachel working with Noah, and as a result would have him interacting with their guests, only made her feel the slightest bit better about the subject.

None of this didn't mean she wasn't annoyed by the fact that she had to drive an hour south because he couldn't arrive three weeks later, once the Saratoga & North Creek Railway was running. Had he come at the end of July instead of the end of June he would have been delivered to their property.

"What's the good in having a damn train station at your ranch if you can't use it?" she muttered, glancing around her for what felt like the thousandth time as she looked for someone sticking out like a sore thumb. It didn't help that all anyone had told her was, "mohawk". Then she saw him and immediately the summer seemed far longer then it actually was, "Damnit. He couldn't have been ugly could he?"

She quickly shook that thought off and briskly pushed her way through the somewhat crowded train station until she had stopped in front of the tall boy sitting on a bench. She took passing note of the guitar case and large duffel bag he had at his feet before greeting him, "I really hope you're Noah Puckerman. 'Cause at this point, if you aren't, I'm still taking you home with me."

Amused hazel colored eyes met hers and a slight laugh left perfectly shaped lips at her statement. She waited, unimpressed, as those same hazel eyes scanned her body, pausing on her old cowboy boots, before looking up and meeting her eyes again.

"Well?" she asked snappily since she could practically hear him comparing her life to a Tim McGraw song and had already heard every single country music joke possible from the teenagers of the tourists that spent their summers at her family's ranch.

"I'm Puck," he finally replied and she decided to take that as an affirmative response. "You are?"

"Rachel Berry," she introduced herself and held out a hand to shake. "My father's own the ranch."

"You don't look like a cow girl."

Rachel, barely, managed to not roll her eyes at the comment before responding in a dry tone, more then used to being stereotyped by the tourists that spent weekends at her family's ranch, "We're only two-hundred miles from Manhattan and only seventy miles from Albany. What did you expect? This _is_ still New York you know. To quote my Daddy, country don't mean dumb."

"I dunno...more, cow-girly?"

"Well, ye-haw ya city-slicker. Giddy-er-up thar and let's haul ass fore the cows come home," Rachel drawled out, managing to put as much sarcasm as she could into the blatantly fake accent she had adopted. "Now, if you're ready? Anyway, I'm in short term parking and my truck tends to stick in second. I'd prefer to be on the road before rush hour."

"Truck? Shit."

"Oh do shut up," Rachel muttered and grabbed his guitar case and walked towards the exit, figuring if he had brought it up here with him he'd be more apt to follow her now that she'd essentially kidnapped the instrument. The walk to her truck was silent and Rachel didn't break it until she had unlocked the doors on her 2008, double cab, Ford F-150. "This is Barbara."

"Barbara?"

"Yep, climb in. It's an hour's drive back to the ranch, without traffic, and I really wasn't kidding about rush hour. It's almost four now."

"When you said truck, I sort of figured it'd be older then this," he commented, climbing into the passenger side after making sure his guitar was safe in the back. "This is only a few years old; why do the gears stick?"

"I got stuck in the mud after a storm a few weeks ago, had to winch it out, and haven't gotten a chance to get it looked at," she explained with a shrug. "It doesn't bother me since we won't be getting any more snow until sometime in September. And I don't usually take it off the property during the summer anyway."

"I can look at it for you."

Rachel blinked in surprise and glanced at the boy next to her who had gone from looking out of place to just plain uncomfortable. For the first time since she saw him she really took him in - band tee-shirt, ripped jeans, sneakers and mohawk. He didn't exactly look like a juvenile delinquent; in fact, he looked like just about any boy she went to high school with Lake George Jr./Sr. High School. Though, she'd be the first to admit, if she went to high school with him he'd probably be sporting a John Deer logo somewhere on his clothing.

"If you really know what you're doing with engines, then I'd appreciate it," she replied. "I don't like bothering the ranch mechanics during the summer because they're busy keeping the place looking pristine for the tourists and I'm always too busy to make the drive to the dealership in Albany."

"I've got, well, I had a part time job at a mechanic shop in Brooklyn," he explained, still in that quiet unsure tone. "I'll take a look and if it's not something I can handle I won't fuck around with it."

"Thanks," Rachel muttered, checking her mirrors and pulling onto Route 9 going north. The drive passed in silence for a few minutes until Rachel couldn't take it anymore and vaguely gestured above Noah's head, "There's some CD's up there if you want to listen to anything. The radio's spotty out here and my Dad's won't spring for satellite."

"I doubt there's anything in there I want to listen to," he responded and again Rachel found herself gritting her teeth and rolling her eyes.

"I'll try this again; we're not in Mayberry. Just at least check what's there before I pick something I _know_ you'll hate. On purpose."

She smirked when she heard him snort a laugh. Yes, this was going to be an interesting summer.

* * *

><p>The next morning Rachel was in the huge kitchen of the Ranch's main house, located on a portion of the property that was closed to tourists, making breakfast when Noah stumbled in and dropped into a seat at the huge block table set for twenty. She watched his eyes sleepily scan the place settings in shock and chuckled. They had gotten home just in time for dinner the night before and had eaten at the much smaller dining table in the main room. The house itself was mostly an open floor plan of a (very) large den with a balcony, holding five large bedrooms, going around three-quarters of the room. There hadn't seemed a point to show Noah the kitchen located through the swinging doors at the back of the den, other then to tell him when he got up for breakfast to go through them.<p>

Rachel had called it a cabin, Noah had looked at her like she had four heads. She had amended her statement to "large cabin."

The fact that he was seeing the inside of the house in the first place was another surprise for her. Noah was the first of her father's "summer projects" that had ever stepped foot inside anything other then the kitchen. Usually, the teens from the work-program stayed in one of the cabins that their summer staff lived in, all located on the closed off portion of the property but about a ten minute walk from the main house.

"Good morning sleepy-head," Rachel half-shouted after she had given him a few seconds to take in the huge room. "Coffee?"

"Please," he croaked out while looking at her like she was insane. "How are you so...awake?"

"Well, being up for almost four hours tends to help," she answered. "Daddy decided to let you sleep in today since you spent all yesterday traveling."

"It's eight. It's summer. This is not sleeping in," he muttered. "The only reason I'm awake is that damn clanging noise outside."

"Oh! That's Maggie. She's our cook during the summer. She's calling everyone in for breakfast. Most of the hands will eat something quick in their cabin's before going out to get the morning work done; then they come back here around eight for breakfast."

"You've been up since four?"

"Yup," she replied. "And tomorrow, so will you."

"Fuck that."

"Oh it's not that bad," Rachel chided, internally laughing. "Why this morning I milked the cows, gathered eggs and helped fix a fence! It was invigorating."

"Stop lying to the boy Rachel. You're going to scare him off," a deep voice interrupted her fun and Rachel pouted as her Dad, Leroy, stamped his boots outside of the backdoor before entering the kitchen and kissing the top of her head. "Don't listen to her Noah. All she did this morning was muck out horse stalls and ready the tack."

"Oh and that sounds so much better then what I told him I was doing?" Rachel joked back, enjoying the horrified look on Noah's face. "Don't worry," she added as she poured his coffee. "I wore gloves_ and _I even washed my hands."

"Ignore our daughter Noah," Rachel's Daddy, Hiram, chimed in as he entered the kitchen. "She's going to tell you horror stories for the next few days. It's her way of hazing you. But I promise on my word of honor that she's not really the devil in disguise."

"Daddy!"

Hiram continued on as though she hadn't spoken, "She's really just a cute little cowgirl who likes to pretend that this isn't a summer resort."

"It's a Horse Ranch Daddy. We just happen to have tourists who descend on us like locusts three months out of the year to terrorize my animals and swim in the pools and play golf."

Rachel pointedly ignored the amused looks Leroy and Noah were trading as the other men and women walked in with Maggie following and decided that serving up breakfast was a better choice then continuing the argument.

It wasn't until after breakfast, when all the hands had left the kitchen with their compliments passed to Rachel and Maggie that Noah brought up the subject of earlier, "So, what exactly is it that I'm supposed to do here this summer anyway?"

Rachel, who was curious about this as well since everything about Noah's arrival had been different from previous summer's, waited for her father's answer as well. She was more then a little nervous when instead of immediately answering, both men traded glances and seemed to be telling the other to speak.

Finally, after a long few seconds it was Leroy who explained, "You're here to keep each other out of trouble."

"Excuse me?" Rachel questioned. "Explain please?"

"Noah needed a place to learn responsibility and keep out of trouble and you needed something to do that wasn't give trail rides with snarky commentary to rich tourists with bratty children. Basically, I'm giving you both the summer off. Ride horses, swim, go hiking, be teenagers."

"Summer off?" Rachel parroted back in shock. She was fairly certain she hadn't had one of those since she was twelve and was strong enough to haul tack around the barns for the riding instructors.

"Yup. Enjoy yourself. It's your last real summer of freedom since you'll be a senior next year. If one of the guys needs help they know to ask you; but other then that, just don't burn down anything."

Rachel glanced over at Noah and almost laughed because for the first time since she had picked him up the afternoon before he didn't look like he had swallowed something disgusting.

She did laugh when the next words out of his mouth were, "So does that mean I _don't_ have to get up at four?"

* * *

><p>From that morning on the summer seemed to fly by for the two teenagers; even if it did take Rachel until the end of July to convince Noah that just because she lived on a Ranch, and that she was technically a cowgirl, she wasn't exactly a hillbilly.<p>

She was only mildly annoyed by the fact that it took dragging him on a shopping trip to Albany to convince him of this, but she took what she could get.

The summer was spent riding horses (and laughing the entire next day when he could barely walk after his first try), swimming and cliff jumping with her friends, making lakeside bonfires and drinking until sun-up, shooting cans with her father's rifle (and spending a week grounded - both of them - for that stunt) and essentially, shockingly, enjoying each other's company.

And yes, she could admit, in the privacy of her own mind, that most of the things her and her friends did wouldn't be out of place in a Tim McGraw song.

They managed to stay in a 'friends zone' and avoid what had been a blazing attraction from the moment they met for the majority of the summer. They both kept busy, even when they were alone together, and just ignored whatever it was that was brewing between them. Somehow, it didn't get awkward until the middle of August, two weeks before Noah was going to head back to New York City and what he had begun to term, "the real world".

"I don't know if I want to go back Rach," he muttered, staring up at a pitch black, star filled sky. They were lying side by side on a blanket in a field about a half hour's walk from the main house. "I can't do shit like this in the city."

"You say that now, but tomorrow Max'll have you hauling chicken wire to fix the fence in the west field and you'll be more then ready to get back to the land of sky-scrapers and taxi cabs."

"No," he immediately answered. "I actually think I'll miss Max calling me a dumb kid."

"Try listening to it for ten years and then tell me how you feel," she joked back. Max was the ranch's foreman, he wasn't allowed within ten yards of a tourist but he ran the 'working' part of the ranch and had since Rachel was seven.

"I'm gonna miss you."

"We can email. Remember that funny little square thing on my desk in my bedroom? It's called a com-pu-ter. We have all these new fangled gadgets."

"Very funny," Noah mumbled back and Rachel felt her stomach drop. She had been trying to make light of the situation but she knew exactly what he was getting at.

"I'll miss you too," she finally replied, sitting up and facing him. "But, you do realize I've been planning on going to college in Manhattan since I could talk right? They've got the best business programs around. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know just about all I need to know to run this place eventually; but my Dad's have it in their heads that I should probably learn some accounting stuff."

"Might not be a horrible idea," Noah agreed, remembering a few weeks earlier when she tried making change at the mall and had finally had to count out her money for her. "How someone so smart can't add or subtract is frightening."

"I'm smart about important things," Rachel shot back. "I know how to take care of horses, I can play a guitar and a piano, I can rodeo...I just can't balance a check book."

"Lucky for us, I can."

They both froze at the words and Rachel blushed slightly; the implications in that statement, especially considering they had been talking about Rachel's future with her family business, were heavy.

"My Dad's want you to come back next summer," Rachel finally decided to, slightly, change the subject. "Like, actually work though."

"I worked this summer," he pointed out and Rachel nodded; because they had. Despite the amount of time off they had gotten, the staff had also kept the teens more then occupied. "I did have fun though. More then I thought I would."

"You were a sorry state at that train station. Trying to look all tough but you were shaking in your chucks."

"I was not! I'm badass."

"Uh-huh," Rachel replied laughing. "I thought you'd be more cow-girly," she mocked. "I'm still not sure what you expected."

"Well first of all, I didn't expect you to be hot," Noah responded. "I think I expected missing teeth and a bad accent. And before you start in on me, I know alright. We're still in New York, we're just...further north."

"Truth time? I do have a missing tooth," Rachel told him laughing a bit. "I got tossed from a horse when I was fifteen in a barrel riding competition. I have a very excellent dentist."

"Ha! I knew I wasn't totally off the mark!"

"Oh shut up," Rachel shot back and shoved him, laughing when he yanked her down and tickled her.

"Now I just have to find it," he whispered and the next thing she knew he was kissing her.

Rachel really wished she could be pissed that he helped her fulfill the stereotype of the cowgirl losing her virginity in a field under the stars, especially due to some unfortunately located bug bites, but it was too perfect to even pretend she was mad.

If anything she was angry over the fact that it took them both that long to get to that point in the first place.

* * *

><p>"So you promise you'll email?" Rachel asked as they waited in the same spot Rachel had picked him up at almost three months earlier.<p>

"You know how to use a gun; believe me, I promise I'll email," Noah replied softly and tugged on one of her braids. "Besides, you're coming to visit NYU in October."

"Yea. About that? Can you try not to make me out to be some back woods hick to your friends?"

Noah laughed at the comment but subconsciously rubbed his shoulder from the memory of the punch she had laid on him when he had been emailing his best friend last week about how his summer was had gone and when he'd be back. Apparently, describing Rachel as something out of a western-themed porno had been a bad way about telling his friend he had a, sort of, girlfriend now.

"I promise. Besides, my Ma's over the moon. I went away a delinquent and am coming home with a rich, Jewish, girlfriend."

Rachel rolled her eyes and shook her head, "She can't be that bad."

"Yea, wait til you stay with us in October. You'll stay one night and then want to get a hotel because she'll try to drag us off to a Rabbi to get married. It's going to be bad enough when you'll be around all the time for college," he explained, bringing a huge smile to Rachel's face at the implication that they'd be together that long.

"I still don't believe you, my little city-slicker."

"It's your funeral cow-girl."

A few months later Rachel refused to admit that Noah had been, if anything, under estimating his mother's enthusiasm and managed to hold out for the entire four days she was visiting Manhattan to look at school's. And if she told him he just _had_ to see the ranch covered in snow, with no tourists to bother them, so he would visit her during winter break it had nothing to do with his mother's constantly inquring about her dress size and color preferences.

After all, country don't mean dumb. If things panned out as she hoped with Noah, she'd have four years of college in the city to avoid Abigail Puckerman and a march down the isle. She didn't need to start playing the odds of her losing that fight too early.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Just a very lil drabble brought on by the prompt. I wanted to leave it more as two book ends - the meeting/greeting and the leaving and how their first initial impressions of each other would have changed. I kept it from Rachel's POV because I figured her upbringing would have given the greatest change to her character - rather then Noah's who, despite being raised in NYC, is essentially the same as on the show. I went to college in upstate NY and it was always funny when we'd see new freshmen showing up on campus like they expected to see cows walking around the Quad or something. You drive twenty minutes outside of Albany and suddenly you're in dairy farm country but that doesn't mean people are "hicks".  
>I'm possibly tossing around ideas of writing little stories that have to do with their summer interactions (and possibly future interactions) but I'm not sure if anyone'd be interested.<p> 


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